Say Please
by Morgan Steelgrave
Summary: Dilandau gets himself cursed...and this curse involves something almost too terrifying and irritating to fathom: a woman who thinks Dilandau is "cute" when he's angry.
1. Eternity is a Very Long Time

Why is it that when an original female character is introduced into a Dilandau fic, she always ends up being a princess held prisoner by Zaibach, fighting against the horrible things she is forced to do and those warm fuzzy feelings she's developing for a certain enigmatically asinine pyromaniac? Why is Dilandau always the one who is convincing the girl to give in and love him (as far as Dilandau-sama is concerned, anyway)?  
  
I hope this fic will break that trend. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of those fics, simply because they portray a side of Dilandau that isn't really seen in the series. But I'm wondering what would happen if some bewitching woman came onto *him*...  
  
They're not mine. Please don't sue me, I live on instant ramen for a reason.  
  
  
  
=== "Say Please" by Morgan Steelgrave - Chapter One ===  
  
  
  
The sun was not far from rising over the remote oasis city of Ta-Jesur, but a faint red glow had already begun along its horizon. Thunderous sounds of destruction were carried by the hot winds as they fanned out across the desert sands.  
  
"Dilandau-sama," Gatti hailed his leader over the comlink, "the outer perimeter is secure."  
  
"Excellent," came the deceptively velvet reply, "now burn the rest."  
  
"Hai!"  
  
Ta-Jesur was surprisingly large for such an isolated place, the only city-state to retain its independence from Freid for the past two hundred years. It came as no surprise that Ta-Jesur remained firm in its condemnation of Zaibach and its actions, even when Freid signed the peace treaty with the empire. Zaibach could not afford to allow the city's opinion to influence its neighboring kingdoms.  
  
In his liquid metal throne, Dilandau grinned savagely at the city he was about to demolish. There was no telling how many people would die before the first light of day, but the prospects were simply exhilarating. He sighed happily, tightening his grip on the guymelef's controls. It was going to be a beautiful day.  
  
"Dilandau-sama!" Gatti's voice interrupted the Captain of the Dragonslayers' reverie.  
  
"Did you not hear the order to proceed, Gatti?" Dilandau hissed, irritated that his men had not yet begin the destruction of the inner city.  
  
"But sir, there's a woman standing there inside the gates!" There was a note of uncertainty to the soldier's voice, which merely fueled Dilandau's anger.  
  
"And I should be concerned because...?"  
  
"We've demolished the entire outer wall, and she's not moving, Dilandau-sama."  
  
"Then she must be either stupid or ready to die," Dilandau barked his reply so sharply he could almost sense Gatti cringe. "Either way, do what I tell you and get moving! Burn this dump to the ground!"  
  
"H-hai, Dilandau-sama," Gatti complied, then turned to lead the charge. The guymelefs proceeded slowly, crima claws extending to the sides to wreak havoc in the taller stone buildings as they moved forward. In his viewscreen, Dilandau could now see the mysterious woman, still unmoving in the remnants of the inner sanctum gate. Even when he brought his Alseides directly in front of her, she did not turn and run screaming as Dilandau expected; instead she brought her gaze up and watched the guymelef with something akin to curiosity.  
  
Dilandau scowled. Such insolence in the face of the infamous Zaibach Dragonslayers was intolerable. With a feral smirk, he aimed his flamethrower at the figure at his feet.  
  
"Burn," he chuckled, igniting the flame and watching it boil downward toward the girl. When the smoke cleared, there was no trace of her. Dilandau grinned. She was more flammable than he had thought. He began to move forward toward the other Dragonslayers, when something peered over the top of his viewscreen directly inside the cockpit.  
  
Despite his extensive training and inflated ego, the boy could not help but let out a screech of surprise and jerk the Alseides to a halt. The thing fell forward, and Dilandau stretched to see if it hit the ground. To his astonishment, he discovered that the thing was none other than the woman he thought he had fried moments before, and that she was floating in front of the guymelef, still trying to see inside.  
  
"What the hell?!" he muttered to himself, watching the girl hover there in a seated position. She was wearing long, nearly transparent white robes that puddled around her in the air. The glint of gold ringed her neck in a wide collar, and gold hoops hung from her ears.  
  
Dilandau blinked, shaking his head. There was no way that woman could be floating there on her own. She had to be using a levistone, or something similar, he tried to rationalize. Plastering his scowl on his face once again to hide his utter shock, he opened the hatch of his guymelef and stormed out onto its shoulder armor.  
  
"Hey! What's the idea, you--" he stopped. The woman was gone. He glanced around, but she was nowhere in sight. Now more than confused, the Dragonslayer shrugged and turned to go back inside the Alseides.  
  
He barely managed to stop his sliding descent into the cockpit when he found the woman seated inside, inspecting the controls earnestly and wiggling her fingers idly in the liquid metal.  
  
"Dammit! Get out of there!" Dilandau shouted, reaching inside to pull the intruding creature out of his cockpit. He never made contact, however, because the woman dodged his gloved hand and floated upward until she was level with him. Dilandau took a wary step back, but forgot he was on top of his guymelef. He nearly lost his footing and turned to correct his balance, nearly falling again when the woman appeared on the other side of him and startled him. He finally managed to regain his balance, regarding her carefully. She watched him with an amused look on her face, which only made Dilandau's irritation flare.  
  
Reaching down into the cockpit while still keeping an eye on the girl, he ordered into the comlink, "All units, halt!" Whirling on the woman, he demanded, "Who the hell are you?"  
  
She did not reply. "I asked you a question," Dilandau growled, but she still said nothing. "Who are you?"  
  
"Ask me nicely," said the woman. Her voice was light, almost childlike. There was an undercurrent of laughter to it, as if she found the entire situation extremely entertaining.   
  
She had to be crazy, otherwise she would never dare say something like that. Dilandau let his guard down completely at the sound of it, laughing outright.  
  
"Ask you *nicely*?" he repeated. Still chuckling, he drew his sword and took a step toward her, his stance easy but threatening. "Fine. Tell me who you are...*now*." The woman sighed impatiently, reached inside the folds of her robe, and drew a long sickle-sword.  
  
Before Dilandau quite knew it, she had appeared behind him and was holding the sword against his throat. "That wasn't very nice," she warned, the laughter in her voice taking on a lower, more dangerous note. The Dragonslayer swallowed, but remained silent. The curved section of the blade pressed harder. "Say please."  
  
This is so degrading, Dilandau muttered mentally. Aloud, he muttered, "Who are you...please."  
  
The sword was immediately removed from his throat, and the girl reappeared in front of him, the enigmatic half-smile on her face once again. "You may call me Meret," she said.  
  
"What are you doing here, if you please?" he continued sourly.  
  
"You didn't tell me your name," she replied, ignoring his second question.  
  
"You mean you don't know who I am?" he raised a silver eyebrow. Meret simply blinked. Dilandau rolled his eyes, grinding his teeth to reign in his irritation with the strange girl. "I am Lord Dilandau, Captain of the Zaibach Dragonslayers. And *you* may call me Dilandau-sama."  
  
Instead of cowering in fear as she should have done by Dilandau's reckoning, however, Meret threw her head back and started laughing hysterically.  
  
"I fail to see why you find it so amusing that you've attacked a Zaibach elite," Dilandau muttered around gritted teeth. Meret ignored him, holding her sides and trying to calm her laughter. Wiping tears from her eyes, she grinned at him from behind the curtain of her wavy auburn hair.  
  
"I'm sorry," she managed. Dilandau's indignation was soothed a bit by her apology.  
  
"You should be, not that it will do anything to save you," he admonished as he straightened his collar. "Now, what are you--"  
  
"You have no idea, do you?" the girl interrupted, her face still flushed from laughing. Dilandau glared at her.  
  
"First of all, *never* interrupt me again," he retorted, "and second, I have no idea about what?"  
  
Meret suddenly appeared directly in front of Dilandau's face, smiling devilishly. "You're kinda cute when you're angry."  
  
"Cute?!" the Dragonslayer spat the word, his temper finally flaring to life. "I've had just about enough of your idiotic remarks. You have no idea who you're dealing with! You dare to hover there and laugh at a warrior who has killed people for much, much less, and then all you can say is...is...cute?!"  
  
"So attack me then. It'll be fun," Meret grinned, drawing her sword again and floating back and forth in front of the enraged Dilandau. He drew his sword and bared his teeth.  
  
"Oh, it would be my pleasure to skin that stupid grin off your face," he agreed, charging her. She easily parried his heavy, angered blows, dodging lightly as he tried to fight her and keep his balance atop his guymelef at the same time.  
  
Around the site of the battle, the other Dragonslayers watched with varying degrees of confusion as their leader savagely attacked a mysterious girl in white. The fact that Dilandau was trying to kill someone was no surprise; what was strange, however, was the fact that the girl was still alive and showing no sign of slowing down.   
  
"Stand still and fight, damn you!" Dilandau snarled, taking another swing at Meret, which she once again easily avoided. Her grin grew wider as she hovered just out of his reach in front of the Alseides.  
  
"Didn't you want to know what I was doing?" she asked innocently.  
  
"Yes, I do," he acknowledged, still holding his ready stance even though his opponent was out of reach. "And maybe if you tell me now, I won't rip your spine out through your nostrils."  
  
"Okay," she said, suddenly appearing right beside the Dragonslayer. "Have you ever heard of the djinn?"  
  
"No, I have not." Dilandau scowled at her, attempting to send her his best death glare.  
  
Meret responded by poking him in his chest. "Silly. I'm one, and you've heard of *me*. I'm the guardian spirit of Ta-Jesur."  
  
"I'll have them carve it on your tombstone."  
  
"While you were attacking the outer wall, I was summoned to protect the rest of the city."  
  
"And what a wonderful job you've done," Dilandau replied acidly, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Take a look around. Your city's about to be burned to the ground. My men only need the word from me before they start smashing everything and everyone. Did you honestly think you could stand a chance against the Zaibach Empire?"  
  
"Actually, that wasn't the point. The city can be rebuilt," Meret corrected lightly. "But while you were trying frantically to destroy me, the rest of the citizens have escaped through an exit in the west wall. You can't hurt them now."  
  
Dilandau's garnet eyes widened a fraction before narrowing dangerously. "There's no way they could have done that." He reached down into the cockpit again and grabbed the comlink. "Gatti, Chesta, Dallet. Have you kept a tally of enemy casualties?"  
  
"Uh...hai, Dilandau-sama," Chesta replied.  
  
"And?"  
  
"As of the time when you called the halt, we recorded a total of...um...zero enemy casualties, sir."  
  
"What?!"  
  
"There have been no enemy casualties, sir," Gatti reaffirmed Chesta's report. "There's been no resistance at all. We haven't seen a sign of anyone, actually. Dilandau-sama? Hello?"  
  
The captain of the Dragonslayers dropped the comlink into the cockpit without bothering to respond. He stood from his crouch slowly, his eyes never leaving the young woman hovering in the air in front of him.  
  
"You..." he accused quietly, his voice having lost all the manic frustration from their not-quite fight a moment before, "they're gone. All of them. Not a single casualty or prisoner."  
  
"Looks like I did my job rather well, don't you think?" Meret looked absolutely pleased with herself.   
  
"You BITCH!" Dilandau lunged at her, redoubling his efforts to separate her head from her body. "Not only am I going to rip your spine out through your nose, I'm going to feed it back to you vertebra by vertebra!"  
  
"You're a very angry person," said Meret as she fluidly evaded his attacks. "It's too easy to push your buttons."  
  
"I don't *want* my buttons pushed! What I want is for you to stand still and fight!" he retorted.  
  
"You're also unbelievably dense," she sighed. "We've been over this once already."  
  
"Been over *what*?"  
  
"If you want something, you have to ask nicely." She smiled beatifically as she disappeared, then rematerialized on the guymelef's shoulder in directly in front of Dilandau. He stood there for a moment, agape, before raising an incredulous eyebrow.  
  
He did not really think it would work, but he asked, "Would you *please* stop hovering around like that and fight me?"  
  
Meret drew her sword and saluted him smartly. "Absolutely," she grinned, taking a ready stance.  
  
Still blinking in disbelief at how easy it had been to get her to come down, Dilandau mirrored her movements and prepared to attack. Before he launched himself at her, however, she came at him with an series of movements that forced Dilandau to the defensive before he quite realized what had happened.  
  
As he parried her blows, he had to grudgingly admit that she was actually very good. Her attacks were succinct and powerful, designed to conserve the fighter's energy. Though Dilandau had trained and studied various forms of swordplay during his time at Zaibach, he did not recognize Meret's style. This gave her a slight advantage, but the Dragonslayer was not ready to give up yet. If he could keep the fight going as long as possible, draw it out and force her to use a wider variety of movements, he could familiarize himself with her technique enough to better anticipate her actions. *Then* he could defeat her.  
  
His plan was easier said than done, however. Her reserve of energy and skill never seemed to end. It irked Dilandau that while he had to fight the urge to wipe the sweat from his eyes, Meret hardly appeared to tire at all. She smiled infuriatingly as she paced her attacks, fully aware of what her opponent was attempting to do. Dilandau's patience was wearing thin; only the thought of defeating the impertinent girl was holding his temper in check.  
  
"It seems we're putting on quite a show," Meret observed as she let the tip of her blade tease Dilandau's to one side. "Your men appear to be enjoying it."  
  
"Shut up and fight," he growled, not wanting to waste valuable breath on flippant words.  
  
"They've stopped completely," she went on, "just to watch you fight. They must genuinely adore you."  
  
"They know to follow orders," Dilandau agreed flatly, concentrating on their weapons. He knew she was trying to distract him, but he would be damned before he let *that* happen.  
  
"Orders?"  
  
"Yes, orders. I tell them to jump, they jump. I tell them to halt what they're doing, and they stop immediately. If I told them to go out in the middle of the woods and kill themselves, they'd do it."  
  
"Not as well as I could," Meret pointed out. She seemed slightly perplexed. "I don't know what kind of spirits they are, but they don't seem very powerful if all they can do is what you tell them to do."  
  
Dilandau was about to argue with her, but an idea struck him. The girl prided herself on how well she did her job, did she? He had fallen for her scheme, he had called the rest of the men to halt in their destruction of the city. Even now she was trying to goad him, manipulate him into forgetting his own duty. Well, he would see about that.  
  
Smirking wickedly, he stepped deftly out of the way of one of Meret's attacks, holding her at bay as he leaned down to grab the comlink.  
  
"You underestimate my men," Dilandau said. "And you underestimate me." Meret seemed puzzled and paused in her battle to watch him curiously.  
  
Into the comlink Dilandau ordered smugly, "Dragonslayers, recommence attack. Do not stop until the entire city has been leveled."  
  
Meret's turquoise eyes grew wide. "You're not--" she trailed off, at a loss for words.  
  
"Oh, wouldn't I?" Dilandau met her astonishment with a cruel chuckle. "You thought I would forget to finish the attack, didn't you? You thought you could distract me and all your people would just come back to their city after we'd left?"  
  
Around them, the other guymelefs readied their flamethrowers. "Recommencing attack, sir," Gatti acknowledged before they moved forward, sweeping the ground ahead of them with a curtain of fire.  
  
"You see, you should *never* try to cross me," said Dilandau, his voice thick and arrogant. Meret was paying him no attention, her gaze fixed on the growing torrent of fiery rubble that surrounded them.  
  
"You're burning the city," she murmured. Dilandau assumed she was speechless with fear and shock.  
  
"You thought you kept me from having my fun by helping the people to escape. But I'll still enjoy myself immensely, even if it means just taking a single prisoner."  
  
She turned to face him then, silhouetted in the red glow. It took Dilandau a moment to identify the look on her face, but when he did he fell silent in his gloating.  
  
She was...happy?  
  
She pounced on him them, gathering him into a bear hug that knocked the wind completely out of him. Her unexpected reaction caught him off guard and he stumbled backward slightly, trying to pry her off. She was surprisingly strong for such a waif of a young woman, and her grip around his neck was like a vise.  
  
"What the hell--?!"  
  
"You burned it down! No one's *ever* been able to do that!"  
  
"But you said...you were supposed to *protect* it..." Dilandau stammered, finding it difficult to speak while his ribs were being crushed. "Why are you...?"  
  
"This is wonderful! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She released him and twirled around in the air, laughing ecstatically. Holding his bruised ribs, Dilandau watched her with an expression of wary shock.  
  
She had totally lost it. The idea that the girl had gone completely out of her mind kept bouncing around in his mind. Somewhere behind her laughter and the alarms going off in his head, Folken's voice was calling to the Dragonslayer from the comlink in the cockpit.  
  
"Dilandau...Dilandau...answer me! Dilandau!" Edging back over to the comlink, Dilandau pressed the button.  
  
"What, Folken?" he asked quietly, never taking his eyes off the strange girl.   
  
"We've managed to apprehend what appears to be the high priest on the other side of the bluff," the Strategos said. "That's all we need. You may return to the Vione now."  
  
"I might have a slight problem, Folken."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I have a half-crazed djinni woman dancing around on my guymelef," Dilandau explained as calmly as possible. The girl made him nervous, and he wasn't used to being nervous. Being nervous made him...well, nervous. "What the hell am I supposed to do about that?"  
  
"A djinni?" Folken sounded distinctly uncomfortable. "Ask her...*politely*, Dilandau, to move. Now get back here." Folken signed off the comlink before Dilandau could even respond. Irritated but trying to control his temper, the Dragonslayer replaced his comlink in the cockpit and turned to face the girl who was still skipping around in the air above his head.  
  
"Hey. Woman." She did not respond, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "Would you mind taking your little happy dance somewhere else?"  
  
She paused, vanishing in midair only to reappear directly in front of him once again. It made him start.  
  
"Why?" she asked with a huge smile.  
  
"I need to return to my ship now, and I don't want you splattered all over my guymelef." She sighed and rolled her eyes.  
  
"Nicely. You have to ask *nicely*," she admonished in a bored voice.  
  
Dilandau's eyes widened in disbelief. "That *was* nice!"  
  
"Was not."  
  
"At least I asked you to move at all! Under normal circumstances I would have gladly smeared you all over my 'melef!" His excuse fell flat in the face of her glare, and he ended the sentence in a frustrated exhalation. "Fine. Would you *please* move so I can leave?"  
  
"Much better. And yes, I'll move." She grinned, patted him on the top of the head like a little boy, and vanished. Dilandau was left with his jaw hanging open, too stunned at her flippant behavior to explode in rage. After a moment he shook himself back to attention and slid into the cockpit, going through the motions of takeoff. It was only after he was in the air on the way back to the docking bay that a coherent thought registered in his head.  
  
"What the hell was that?!"  
  
* * *  
  
The question still plagued him as he stood at attention in the room where they had taken the captured priest. Folken questioned the man about the political situation of Ta-Jesur before its fall, and whether or not it had allied cities within Freid that were also against both the monarchy and the Zaibach Empire. The priest, whose name was Amosis, seemed reluctant to give out information. Even such a tempting thing as torturing a prisoner did nothing to jar Dilandau from his puzzled reverie, however.  
  
"Let me make this as simple as possible, Amosis," Folken sighed after several hours. "You were the most influential figure of Ta-Jesur, before it met such an unfortunate end. You preached independence from both the monarchy of Freid and the Zaibach Empire, and I'm sure people listened to you. I want people to listen to you, Amosis, but I want you to change your message. I want you to back Zaibach and help us eliminate any more of these meaningless wastes of life before they happen."  
  
Dilandau was tuning most of Folken's speech out. He tuned Folken out quite a bit, actually, but the events of the day forced themselves to the foreground of his thoughts more than usual. The random thoughts had gelled into a more practical internal narrative by that point. He wondered if there were more creatures like her, more djinn, as she called herself. He wondered if he could estimate the extent of her powers. He wondered if he could learn the vanishing trick...he could really scare the Dragonslayers into order if he could do that.  
  
"What have you done to my city?" The priest, who had remained silent throughout most of the interrogation, finally spoke. His voice was low, hoarse, and thickly accented. Dilandau was surprised the sound carried through his bushy white beard at all.  
  
If Folken was surprised by the man's words, it never registered on his face. He simply replied, "It's been burned. Everything has been destroyed."  
  
"And my people?"  
  
"They're alive. They managed to escape unharmed. We counted no fatalities among them." The Strategos doled out honest information carefully, hoping such facts might persuade the priest to consent to their task.  
  
"So Ta-Jesur lives on in her people. All is not lost," the old man noted with a twitch of his mustache that might have been construed as a smile.  
  
"I suppose," Folken conceded. "But they have no homes, Amosis. They have no place to return to, no food, no--"  
  
"Who did it?" Amosis interrupted Folken's sermon.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Who burned the city?" The question was posed innocently enough. Folken glanced at Dilandau, who had snapped out of his daydream at the mention of fire.  
  
"Lord Dilandau ordered the destruction of the city." The priest's black eyes roved to the young captain of the Dragonslayers. The boy chuckled venomously.  
  
"It took me a while," he explained languidly. "I had a little distraction, some crazy woman challenging me to a fight on my guymelef. She was trying to keep me from making the order, but she didn't succeed. It burned, and she got to watch it." So he was adjusting the facts just a little, they would never know any better. The girl *had* watched the city burn...she just wasn't as devastated by it as Dilandau was implying at the moment. He smirked.  
  
"So you met Meret," Amosis murmured. "Then this should be even more fitting."  
  
"Excuse me, Amosis, what are you--" Folken tried to intercede, but the old man stood up, white robes trailing to the floor, and pointed a finger at Dilandau. His face was contorted into a reddened scowl as he spat at the Dragonslayer in his native tongue, then reached into a small pouch at his waist. He lunged toward Dilandau, smearing a line of reddish dust down the soldier's forehead before he was subdued by the guards.  
  
"With the soil of my homeland, I curse you! Ta-Jesur may be destroyed, but we will live on, and our spirit will haunt you for eternity, slayer!" His words faded away as he was dragged down the corridor, still yelling at the top of his lungs. His absence left an odd silence in the small room, where Dilandau and Folken stood staring at each other in confusion. For the second time that day, Dilandau found himself asking a familiar question.  
  
"What the hell was that?!"  
  
Folken blinked. "I believe you were just cursed, Dilandau." The Dragonslayer snorted.  
  
"I thought he was inviting me to a birthday party. Damn," he muttered acidly, attempting to wipe the smudge of dirt off his forehead. "Did you understand any of that?"  
  
"Bits and pieces. It was mostly just calling you and your ancestors foul names, but the part about haunting you for all eternity was interesting." Folken raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Oh, please. That's such a load of crap, Folken. Don't tell me you believe in that stuff." Dilandau straightened his uniform and giggled evilly. "Ooooh, I'm going to haunt you forever because you burned down my city! Hmph...riiight."  
  
"Maybe you shouldn't be taking this so lightly, Dilandau. Wasn't it you who said he had a half-crazed djinni dancing on his guymelef earlier? Or did you have a little too much to drink before the mission again?"  
  
"Yeah, but that's different. She wasn't some nutcase yelling curses at me about how the spirit of Ta-Jesur was going to..."  
  
/////"Have you ever heard of the djinn?"  
"No, I have not."  
"Silly. I'm one, and you've heard of *me*. I'm the guardian spirit of Ta-Jesur."/////  
  
"...haunt you for eternity?" Folken finished dryly. He allowed himself a small chuckle, until Dilandau's voice caused him to turn around.  
  
"Oh, no."  
  
"Dilandau?" Confused, Folken waved a hand in front of the Dragonslayer's face. A look of sheer horror had passed over him.  
  
"Not her. Anything but her."  
  
"What are you talking about?" the Strategos demanded, but Dilandau wasn't listening. He began pacing nervously, running both hands though his silvery hair and trying to squeeze the sudden headache in his skull into submission.  
  
"Fire would be fine. Or being eaten alive wild dogs. Hell, chewing my *own* leg off. But please, please, *please*..."  
  
As if on cue, an unidentified form materialized in midair and swooped down to tackle him, a blur of white and gold. They landed on the floor with a resounding thud, and Folken ran around the table to see if Dilandau needed help battling the thing. "Dilandau? Dilandau!"  
  
Dilandau needed help, definitely, but he was not in the position Folken had expected to find. He had thought there would be gore, or blood at least. Instead, he found a red-haired young woman dressed in the religious robes of the Ta-Jesur region, wrapping the fuming Dilandau in a bear hug.  
  
Stifling his laughter, the Strategos tried not to smile as he said, "Well, Dilandau, it looks as if you have matters well under control. Report back if there are any further developments." With that, he beat a hasty retreat into the hall, where he leaned against the wall and laughed until his stomach hurt.   
  
He took a deep breath, straightened his robes, and decided he needed a drink. Badly. He started off in search of one, still chuckling as Dilandau's frantic cries still followed him down the hall from inside the room.  
  
"Folken! Dammit, Folken, get back here! I need your help! FOLKEN!!!"   
  
  
- TO BE CONTINUED - 


	2. Magic Tricks

Here we go with the next little bit...thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed. I'm not quite sure where this thing is going, but I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, ne?   
  
  
  
=== "Say Please" by Morgan Steelgrave - Chapter Two ===  
  
  
  
It took Dilandau only a minute to identify the creature that had appeared out of nowhere and wrapped herself around him like a squid. Growling, he struggled to extricate himself from Meret's grasp, but the djinni woman was far stronger than he had remembered. Glancing up, Dilandau saw Folken regarding the scene with a strange look on his face. When he spoke, his voice was strangled and a little higher-pitched than normal.  
  
"Well, Dilandau, it looks as if you have matters well under control. Report back if there are any further developments." He practically ran out of the room, and Dilandau wondered for a moment as he began to lose feeling in his appendages if the Strategos had been stricken ill by the curse.  
  
Then he heard Folken laughing his ass off out in the hall. His anger returning, the Dragonslayer yelled, "Folken! Dammit, Folken, get back here!" In his fury, he tried once again and in vain to get Meret to release her hold, but the girl was not budging. By this point, Dilandau was feeling light-headed and little black spots were dancing in front of his eyes.  
  
He was going to die, and this...this...woman would be the cause of it. What an embarrassing way to go, some distant part of his brain noted. Another part of his mind screamed at him to fight it, to fight the girl and live to skin her alive. This prospect proved motivation enough for Dilandau to swallow what little pride he had left at the moment and call out, "I need your help! FOLKEN!!!"  
  
He heard giggling by his ear and rolled his eyes to the side in an attempt to better see his captor. All he could see was a mass of auburn hair. He managed to hiss, "Can't...breathe...let...go..."  
  
Meret giggled again. "You know better than that. Say please," she chided.  
  
"Please," hissed Dilandau. The girl immediately dropped her prey, which landed with another resounding thud, and floated above him with her legs tucked underneath her. She listened attentively as Dilandau proceeded to scream at her.  
  
"I don't believe this! I don't fucking believe this!" he yelled as he stood to brush himself off. He was a little unsteady on his feet due to the world still spinning around him, so Meret silently extended a finger and pushed him back into balance as he straightened his armor. He swatted her hand away furiously.  
  
"I'm happy to see you, too," Meret smirked. Dilandau ignored her and began to pace.  
  
"What did I do to deserve this?!" Meret opened her mouth to answer him, but he whirled on her, standing inches from her face. "Not one word," he hissed, glaring at her with as much homicidal madness as he could muster. It really wasn't that difficult, considering the circumstances.  
  
"I might get the impression you're not excited to see me, with the way you're acting," she noted dryly. Dilandau's eyes rolled back into his head and he made a stifled, frustrated growl before turning away and pacing some more, issuing a steady stream of muttered expletives.. Meret watched him the way one watches a caged animal, eyebrows lifting when she caught the occasional, more colorful word. After a while, she spoke up again. "You're going to work yourself into a fit over something you really don't have any control over, you know."  
  
Dilandau stopped mid-stride at her words and stared at her. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. The girl was there, floating right in front of him with that irritating half-smile, and there was not a damn thing he could do about it at the moment. He was stuck with her until he could track Folken down and ask him what to do, after punching him for laughing at him earlier.  
  
That's what really irked him, was that this girl managed to cut him off at the knees without really trying. She had reduced him to a powerless idiot with a mere embrace. No, that had been no hug, he amended. It was a death grip. And he had resorted to calling to Folken for help. The great Dilandau Albatou did not call for *help*. And now, he was exerting all his energy in screaming at her in barely coherent sentences, and she simply floated there and listened to him rant like a spoiled child. She was making him look like an idiot *again*, and he was too aggravated to see beyond her tricks.  
  
He wanted to strangle her, tear her apart, dismember and disembowel her. But there was no way he could lay a hand on her, he was forced to admit. Their fight earlier had shown that, and though he planned on defeating her eventually, it was not the time to make the attempt. He was too tired and wound up to approach it logically. That, and he doubted it would be as easy as a little swordplay to remove a curse that was supposed to haunt him for all eternity. So if he couldn't kill her slowly and methodically, using something painfully dull like a butter knife, what else could he do?  
  
Finally accepting his exhaustion and his predicament, Dilandau allowed his shoulders to slump beneath their armored plates and stepped over to the girl. She was watching him cautiously, green eyes slightly narrowed. He reached out with one gloved hand, almost hesitantly. Meret raised one curious eyebrow, and that was enough for him to snap to motion and grab her by the hair. She yelped as he dragged her out of the room and down the hallway, plowing determinedly along the metal corridors with her floating behind him.  
  
"Hey!" she protested his hauling her unceremoniously down the hall, but Dilandau ignored her. "Where are we going?"  
  
"To 'work myself into a fit' in a more comfortable place," he replied through gritted teeth.  
  
"Oh," said Meret. "Will you please let go of my hair now?"  
  
Dilandau shot her a glare meant to melt iron. "No."  
  
"I didn't think so. Just checking."  
  
* * *  
  
Dilandau had what he considered a relatively high tolerance for alcohol, and though he was a soldier and operated heavy machinery daily, he was fond of the occasional drink when he was dealing with unsavory subjects or simply having a bad day. Seeing as that particular day fit both categories, the Dragonslayer had managed to get himself suitably drunk in an amazingly short amount of time. Suitably being, of course, feeling as if he were underwater and far, far away from the thing that was currently sitting on his chest and staring at him.  
  
"Was that really necessary?" Meret asked, cocking her head to one side. Dilandau was sprawled across the length of the couch in his rooms. Meret had been floating beside him, but as the evening progressed the sight of a young woman floating in the air had been a little much for Dilandau to process in his inebriated state, so Meret was forced to find a seat. Any and all chairs in the room were in sad shape, the convenient victims of their owner's frequent temper tantrums. Meret did not really feel like sitting in something that had been slashed, broken, spilled upon (that looked like a blood stain, and Meret was not at all sure she wanted to know the unfortunate soul whose blood it was) and burned, so she sat in the next most convenient spot: on top of Dilandau.  
  
"Abso-fucking-lutely," he growled in answer to her question. He glared at her, but appeared to be having difficulty focusing on her. She sighed and adjusted her position so she was sitting down closer to Dilandau's feet.  
  
"Could you watch your language? If you're going to curse, I know you can be far more creative about it," she said in reference to his earlier outburst. Dilandau snarled and tossed his second empty bottle at her, missing her by a mile.  
  
"You're a fine one to talk about cursing someone," he snapped. Meret blinked.  
  
"What do you mean by that?" she asked. Dilandau merely snorted and uncorked another bottle of whatever vile thing he was drinking. "You're going to have a nasty hangover. How can you fight like that?"  
  
"Thanks, Mom," he sneered, taking a swig from the bottle. "I'll watch my language when you stop lecturing. I mean, is that was this whole thing is supposed to be about? You slowly driving me insane with nagging? What the hell kind of..." He trailed off just as he was starting to gain momentum in his rant. He stared down at his lower body with a puzzled look on his face. "I can't move my legs," he remarked.   
  
"That's because I'm sitting on them."  
  
"Of course it *would* be your fault," he replied sourly. Meret grinned and clasped her hands beneath her chin.  
  
"You're so adorable when you slur!" she cried, diving forward and subjecting him to another hug. By this point, nothing really fazed the Dragonslayer, and he simply grunted rolled his eyes heavenward. The only problem was that his arm was somewhat restrained, and he couldn't get the bottle to his lips. After two or three unsuccessful attempts, he gave up and dropped the bottle to the floor, beyond caring if it spilled on his rug. He dropped off to sleep within moments, snoring a little louder than usual and hardly even noticing the dead weight on his chest anymore.  
  
* * *  
  
Dilandau didn't at all like the developing trend of his curse being right all the time. She had been correct in judging the extent of his hangover; when he awoke the next morning, even the low lamplight of his chambers hurt his head. Everything ached, especially his ribs. That had less to do with the massive quantities of alcohol he had consumed than Meret's repeated crushing embraces. Only after he had managed to sit up without too much undue pain did Dilandau realize the djinni in question was nowhere in sight.  
  
He would have been elated, if his eyes could have come unglued and focused a bit better. A hot shower helped, and by the time he was buckling himself into his armor, he was relatively functional. Relatively.  
  
There was no sign of the girl in his rooms or in the hallways leading to the barracks of his men. Meret's absence lifted his spirits somewhat, if not his mood, and he entered the barracks looking forward to a good training session with the men. That's what he needed, alright. Good, respectful, predictable, boring Dragonslayers to scare the hell out of.   
  
Upon opening the door, however, the scene in the barracks was anything but boring, nor was it respectful or predicted. The Dragonslayers had gathered around Meret in the center of the room, seated on the beds or on the floor.  
  
"Now I'm going to make the coin disappear. Watch closely, now," she was saying. The men leaned forward to observe her movements, then gasped in unison when the money apparently vanished.  
  
"Wow! How did you do that?" Chesta demanded, grabbing her hand and examining it. Meret smiled.  
  
"Magic," she said. "Oh! What's this here?"  
  
"Where?" Chesta glanced up at her, and she reached behind one of his ears and revealed the coin in her hand. A chorus of oohs followed.  
  
"You think that was good, watch this!" Meret snapped her fingers, and Gatti's uniform pants immediately dropped to the floor. He yelped and yanked them back up, blushing furiously as the others howled with laughter.  
  
"That wasn't funny! Guys, that wasn't--" Gatti glanced up from bucking his belt to see Dilandau standing in the doorway, seething. Gatti gulped audibly. "Uh...D-D-Dilandau-sama!" The other Dragonslayers all scrambled to stand at attention upon seeing Gatti's panicked look. Meret remained floating at ease, watching the scene with renewed interest.  
  
Dilandau held his position for several interminable minutes, simply regarding the Dragonslayers and watching them squirm. He waited until they began to sweat profusely before he stalked forward, hands clasped behind his back, red eyes squinted.  
  
"I would have thought you would have learned by now to be at attention and ready for the day's training when I arrive," he mused, pacing in front of them. "I would have thought you were more intelligent than to be distracted by some stupid magic tricks." He stopped in front of Chesta and delivered a hard slap to the boy's face. The other Dragonslayers winced as their comrade received his punishment. Gatti tried not to cringe, knowing he was next as his leader stepped over to him.   
  
"And as for you, Gatti," Dilandau continued. Instead of hitting him, however, he smiled wickedly and glanced back at Meret. "If you please," he said, and with a giggle she snapped her fingers. Gatti's pants dropped once again, and his fingers twitched involuntarily as he had to stop himself from bending down and pulling them back up. Dilandau leaned forward until he was inches from Gatti's bright red face and said, "I thought it was *very* funny."  
  
The others had to fight to keep from laughing aloud. Dilandau observed Gatti's mortification for a moment before announcing, "The rest of you get to the training area and begin your exercises, I'll meet you there shortly. There's someone I need to speak with before I join you. Gatti, you stay here and do not move one muscle. I'll be back to check on you, and if I find you've moved an inch, I'll pull your fingernails out with a pair of tongs. I have a headache, so don't try me. Now get out of here." He watched the other Dragonslayers file out of the room, then turned to speak to Meret. She had already materialized directly behind him, however, so Dilandau jumped slightly upon turning around and finding her much closer than he had expected.   
  
"Will you PLEASE stop doing that?!" he snapped, then winced and pressed the bridge of his nose to quell the pain in his head.  
  
"Sure," Meret agreed easily. Dilandau gave her a quizzical look from behind his hand, but ignored her. "Come on, we're going to see Folken." He reached out to grab her by the hair again, but she disappeared and re-appeared just out of his reach. "I can follow you without you dragging me around like a caveman," she noted.  
  
"Whatever. Now come on," he exited the room without looking back at Meret or Gatti, who had stood watching the entire exchange with eyes as round as dinner plates, and his pants still puddled around his ankles.  
  
In the hall, Dilandau was walking swiftly towards Folken's office, when Meret materialized and latched onto his arm like a limpet while floating along beside him.  
  
"I thought you said you could follow me without being dragged like a dead animal," he growled.  
  
"This is different. It's on my terms, and you don't have me by the hair." They passed by a group of soldiers who eyed Meret appreciatively, then grinned at the Captain of the Dragonslayers. One of them even had the audacity to shoot him a discreet thumbs-up. Dilandau glared at them.  
  
"Well, stop it. We're being stared at," he hissed between clenched teeth. Meret noticed the men whispering and casting glances in her direction. She scowled and materialized directly in front of them, sword pointed directly in their faces. They cursed upon looking ahead and seeing the girl suddenly standing in front of them, barely stopping before running into the blade.  
  
"I don't appreciate it, boys," she hissed.   
  
"Wait, h-how did you do that?!" one of them demanded. Meret smiled coldly.  
  
"Magic." She looked furious, her green eyes glowing, her robes and hair lifting slightly in the charged air around her. The men took one look at her as she started advancing on them, turned, and ran. They didn't get far, however, before tripping over their bootlaces where their boots had been tied together.  
  
"Oh, that was great. They look ridiculous," Meret reappeared next to Dilandau with her sword sheathed once again, laughing hysterically and seemingly back to normal. She latched onto him again, still giggling, and Dilandau cast a questioning sidelong glance at her. He said nothing, though, and they continued down the hall.   
  
  
- TO BE CONTINUED - 


	3. When Desperate Measure Backfire

Tee hee...time to have some fun with Dilandau's little mind! I *still* don't know where I'm taking this thing, but thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed for coming along on the ride. ^_^ We'll see what we can do to torture our favorite pyro a little more.  
  
  
  
=== "Say Please" by Morgan Steelgrave - Chapter Three ===  
  
  
  
Folken heard Dilandau and Meret's approach long before they reached his door. He could not help but allow himself a small smirk as he paused, beaker in hand, to listen to their bickering.  
  
"You didn't like how they were behaving, so I took care of it," Meret was saying. Folken flinched when Dilandau yelled his reply.  
  
"Who asked you to take care of it?!"  
  
"You didn't have to, but I knew you wanted to teach them a lesson. I just did it to make you happy," she explained. It fell on deaf ears, apparently.  
  
"I had it under control!"  
  
"Of course you did. I just wanted to have a little fun. What's wrong with having a little fun with them?" The patronizing tone in Meret's voice was well-masked, but Folken could easily detect it. He had to admit, she knew exactly how to handle Dilandau and how far she could push. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that any rage he vented on her had no permanent effect; if he tried to attack her, she would dodge. If he screamed at her, she would sit and listen absently until he was done, then say something to enrage him even more. Folken had a feeling the djinni woman's presence would add a certain color to the Vione...not to mention it was entertaining to watch Dilandau make an idiot of himself around her.  
  
He heard something thump against the corridor wall. "They belonged to Green Regiment of the Zaibach Army! You do not have *fun* with them, or my men!" Folken whistled softly. Dilandau was really getting angry now. The Dragonslayers were his territory, and whatever Meret had done had threatened his superiority.  
  
In the hallway, Dilandau had backed Meret against the wall and was yelling at her, inches from her face. She shrugged. "It's not my fault you were hung over and slept late. I warned you that would happen, anyway."  
  
"Not your..." Dilandau laughed as if the idea was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "Of course it's your fault!" Meret ignored his accusations and continued with her explanation.  
  
"You were asleep, so I got bored and went exploring. I found your men waiting for you, too, so I thought I'd provide a little diversion."  
  
"You wanted to show off, you mean," Dilandau interrupted sourly. Meret gave him her best innocent look and opened her mouth to respond, but he continued right over her. "Don't even bother to deny it! You're a show-off! Look at me, I can float around and do stupid magic tricks! You were showing off in the barracks, and you were showing off yesterday in the battle at Ta-Jesur!"   
  
"They're not stupid magic tricks," Meret scowled. "And you're one to talk. You're spoiled rotten. You think everyone should bend over backwards to do your bidding, but the minute someone isn't terrified enough to do what you tell them to do, you pout!"  
  
Dilandau inhaled sharply. "I do not *pout*," he spat.  
  
"Yes, you do. Then you go wallow in your misery, and expect the rest of us to tiptoe around you then next morning because you were stupid enough to get drunk and you're starting to feel the effects!" She smiled evilly, a look of intense determination on her face. "Well, somebody around here has to make you realize what an ass you're making of yourself, and how badly you're treating everybody else. If I can do something as impossible as that, I think I have a right to show off! So what?" The girl poked one long finger at Dilandau's armored chest, pushing him backward with each word. "You thought it was funny when I made Gatti's pants fall down. I'll bet you thought it was funny when I scared those soldiers in the hall."  
  
"Did not," Dilandau argued. It occurred to him that whenever he was around the djinni girl he was reduced to either arguing like an angry child, or communicating in a string of slurred, furious expletives. She had pushed him back against the wall by then, and he hit it with a clang of metal on metal.  
  
"Did too! Admit it! You thought it was funny!" She was really going after him now, still poking his chest, leaning into him to emphasize her point.  
  
Maybe he *had* thought it was a little funny, but he would be damned if he would ever admit it. Aloud, he said, "Did not."  
  
"Did too!"  
  
"Did not. Shut up." His head still hurt from the previous night's indulgence and her antics were not helping. The fact that she was enjoying her wicked torments made it even worse.  
  
"Did too!"  
  
"Shut up!"  
  
"Did too, did too, did too!"  
  
It was then that Dilandau finally snapped. He was going to shut her up one way or another, and if he couldn't kill her or get rid of her, he would shut her up with the only desperate means he had at hand. He covered her mouth with the most convenient thing he could come up with: *his* mouth.  
  
It was effective, at least. At his sudden lunge forward, Meret had been prepared to dodge some kind of attack, but the kiss caught her totally off-guard. She went ramrod straight until he parted from her.  
  
"Now will you PLEASE shut up?!" He squared his shoulders and gave her a look that dared her to retaliate.  
  
Meret stood perfectly still for a long moment, staring at him. Then a slow smile spread across her face. Dilandau's glare melted into a grimace of abject horror as he recognized the look on her face. He tried to back away, but he was caught between Meret and the wall...a rock and a hard place. A very, very scary hard place, he realized as Meret pounced with a small growl.  
  
Dilandau's yelp could be heard in his office, but several minutes of eerie quiet passed before Folken's brows knitted themselves into concern. He wondered if it had been possible for Dilandau to kill the girl, after all, though he expected her execution would exhibit howls of joyous triumph on the Dragonslayer's part. And fire, he added; there would definitely be fire involved. Perhaps he had incurred her wrath and was dead, instead. Either way, the Strategos had to find out what was going on.  
  
Opening the door to the hall, Folken straightened his sorcerer's robes in an attempt to look a little more like he was on official business instead of simply being nosy. When he glanced up, however, his eyes widened in surprise and he had to duck back into his office to staunch the flow of his sudden nosebleed. He sat down heavily in his chair, holding a handkerchief to his nose. He had been right; Meret was certainly adding a little color to life on the Vione.  
  
* * *  
  
It was a while before Dilandau appeared inside his office, clothes disheveled, hair mussed, a smear of lipstick on his face. He threw open the heavy door and then slammed it hard behind him, leaning on it and panting. His eyes had the glazed, paranoid look of a fox surrounded by a pack of rabid dogs.  
  
"What the hell was that?! Where's the girl?" Folken demanded, his voice muffled by the handkerchief. Dilandau was still staring off into space, not focusing on anything in the room in particular. The Strategos waved his hand in front of Dilandau's face until the Dragonslayer blinked, returning to the present. "Dilandau?"  
  
"Probably out sucking someone else's soul out through their face," Dilandau replied with hollow sarcasm.  
  
"Dilandau," Folken intoned.  
  
"Fine. She went to tell Gatti he could pull his pants up," he said, still leaning against the door. Upon glancing up, the look on Folken's face indicated that further explanation was necessary. Dilandau slid down the door until he was sitting against it, one knee hugged against his chest. "She played a prank on Gatti earlier and made his pants fall down. I made him stand there like that as punishment for goofing off."  
  
"I see," Folken nodded. "And what was that prank she was playing on you out in the hall?" Folken was pleasantly surprised to see Dilandau blush as he floundered for a response.  
  
"She tackled me!" he finally managed to say in his own defense, though it was not at all convincing. Folken raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so maybe I started it," Dilandau grudgingly conceded, throwing his hands into the air, "but what else was I supposed to do? I have to show her who's in charge! I'm not going to take this damned curse sitting down!"  
  
Folken remarked dryly, "Well, I feel quite sure Meret knows exactly who is in charge, and you didn't appear to be taking the curse sitting down at all." Dilandau frowned and opened his mouth to respond, but Folken held up his hand to silence him. "That aside, why are you here, Dilandau?"  
  
"I want to know if there's a way to remove the curse," Dilandau replied as he stood up and brushed himself off. "You seemed to know what that crazy priest was saying. Can you undo whatever the hell it is he did?"  
  
"I'm not sure. I'll have to look into it." Folken seated himself at his desk once more and resumed his experiment.  
  
"Why don't you just get the guy to reverse it? I'm sure I could persuade him to do it." He cracked his gloved knuckles and grinned. Folken sighed.  
  
"It's not that simple, Dilandau. You can't torture him. Zaibach needs him to help cement our political holdings in the region. But," Folken added, ignoring what he knew was a scowl of exasperation on the Dragonslayer's face, "I'll see what I can do."   
  
"Well, you do that. I've got training to do," Dilandau said to Folken's back. He started for the door.  
  
"Oh, and Dilandau," Folken called after him. Dilandau paused in the doorway.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Lipstick." Folken pointed to his own face, his back still turned to Dilandau.  
  
"Oh. Right," he scrubbed absently at the side of his face as he shut the door behind him. Folken smiled slightly. He would have to thank Meret later, he thought. Dilandau had never been so entertaining.  
  
  
- TO BE CONTINUED - 


End file.
